I'm looking for a boot with flex that's in between park and freeride, an all mtn boot and I'm finding manufacturers ratings are BS. It seems like Thirty Two's flex rating is at least 2-3 levels softer than what they say and the majority of boots I find most comfortable I can fold in half with two fingers... I'm finding it's either great fit and marshmallows, or perfect flex rating and uncomfortable, I cannot find the perfect blend.

Anyways I feel bad having to try on every boot in the shop. I was at Sport Chalet for like an hour trying on different boots and I started feeling bad for the guy..

Whats even better is that the boots I went with that felt good in the store ended up giving me numb toes, pain, and hot spots after one day of boarding. So I returned them. They were Nike Vapens, I think I needed to go down half a size but of course they didn't have that.

So if I can get some true 5 flex ratings for different boots regardless of what they actually say that'd really help me a lot.

I went to the Celsius Cirrus from the 2009 Vans Andreas (which were a relatively stiff freeride/freestyle boot before they introduced the softer model in 2010) and I would recommend doing the same to anyone who's looking for a well rounded boot. The Vans were way too stiff for jibbing because they wouldn't flex forward enough when setting the board down on a rail. The Cirrus are just a little softer with good forward flex but still rigid enough to handle big jumps and some freeriding. Obviously that will also depend on how soft your bindings are too. I've ridden 32's lashed and team 2's and thought they were both way too soft, even though the team 2's had a pretty high rating.

Sometimes good boots will be painful first few times due to break in, and often hot spots will occur due to overtightening boots and/or bindings. If you live anywhere near Torrance I recommend checking out Olympus Board Shop.

Sometimes good boots will be painful first few times due to break in, and often hot spots will occur due to overtightening boots and/or bindings. If you live anywhere near Torrance I recommend checking out Olympus Board Shop.

Hah yeah I live in Torrance. I actually called there and had a long chat. The person I was talking to told me my board was fine because its length was within my neck and chin range and from what I've read on here that's a myth and to stay away from shops that say that. So I didn't end up going in. My buddy told me all they had was Nitro boots but he's normally full of shit, so I'll probably check it out.